"A growing number of refugees enter the European Union, looking for a safe place to live. Because of war more and more people decide to undertake the dangerous travel to Europe. Once in Europe, the different countries have to take their responsability and give shelter to large numbers of expelled people. After admission the different countries redevide them over several cities where they can start their new life. Often with young children. The children have to attend school and big problems arise.The Dutch Onderwijsraad has published in 2017 a report about Refugees in Education.They conclude that perspectives on a paid job and full fledged participation in society after leaving school are low. How can school help and prepare refugees in a better way? Education must have a major role in asylum and integration policy in every country!Problems arise in schools:- how can schools finance special care?- students with a refugee background often attend lower forms of education because of language problems- schools have no competence in recognizing traumatic events these students often encountered- they don't have qualified language teachers for this group- other students in the schools don't understand the problems of the refugees and don't mix with students with a refugee background. Social exclusion is on the lurk.In our Erasmus+ project 4 countries with different levels of refugee problems work together. Large groups of refugees enter in the E.U. through Italy and Greece.They give shelter to them and take care of them in school.Germany and Holland take care of many refugees because often refugees want to go to safe, wealthy and caring countries.In this project we want to learn about the problems and solutions concerning education for refugees in the partner schools.During a preparatory visit to Germany the refugee-coordinators made a priority list of the current problems: - recognition of exclusion and preparing instruments to realize social inclusion in school and city- investigation on migrant issues needed in order to help integration of refugees in society and school- insufficient awareness in schools and the rest of society about migrant issuesParticipating students are on basis of the following criteria:- age 16- 18; all students have pre-university level; a good level of English; sufficient schoolresults; a letter of motivation.6 - 8 students per country will attend International Learning, Teaching and Training Activities. They will be accompanied by two teachers. Students will stay in host -families.The methodology that will be used:First our schools will investigate refugee issues in their country.Resulting this investigation the first conference is in October 2018 in the Netherlands.Students make a digital booklet about refugee problems , and will have a course of Lectora to learn how to build E-learning modules which we will use in our schools to inform people outside the project.An internet site will be built, containing a section of the general part like an agenda of conferences, student profiles, videos, surveys and the digital booklet. And a section containing with the Learning Portal.After each conference a film will be published on the site. A digital survey is sent to all participants. Results will be available on the site.In April 2019 ,in Greece, we investigate the macro scale problems of large groups of immigrants arriving there. The problems in certain cities to shelter them and give them proper education will be examined.After this conference, we will produce a digital survey for all schools. Results will be published on the site, and will be used to prepare the final conferences in Italy and Germany. In October 2019, in Italy we try to find solutions to the problems we have found during the previous conferences. We will use knowledge from external organisations like the Immigrant Reception Center ""Less"". The first e-learning module will be published on our L.P. Between this conference and the final one, the e-lessons will be tested in school and if necessary adjusted.In April 2020, in Germany, we will proceed with our search for solutions to refugee related issues in schools. Also we want to organise a major final event; presenting our findings and solutions to other schools and external organisations, concerned with refugees.The impact of the project is expected to be manifold:All students will be aware of the problems refugees encounter at different levels. During mentorlessons the Elearning lessons will be used.European citizenship and social awareness will increase.Participants in the future will be able to make thoughtful decisions in their social and political life. Elearning modules and other content on the site will be available for at least 2 years.Refugees will participate, helped e.g. by the Buddy project in school events and social life.They will have better job changes and improved language knowledge. They will connect better!"

After the UN climate conferences of Kyoto 1997 and Paris 2015 people have become more aware of climate change and the dangers arising from it. Relatively new in this respect is the Tipping Point Theory. When temperatures rise to a certain threshold level, climate change will continue automatically and negative effects will reinforce one another. Although we aim at a carbon neutral world in 2050, since the Paris Agreements of 2015 global emission of greenhouse gasses has only increased! We now realize climate change is a fact and we have to anticipate with measures that can reduce the effects or even resolve them. Climate adaptation involves all policies aimed at coping with a changing climate. If we do not act, the social and economic costs might very well be several times higher than the investments we need for climate adaptation. The project team has been constructed carefully in order to enable participants to learn different aspects of this multifaced problem. The European climate adaption platform Climate-ADAPT, a cooperation between the European Commission and the European Environment Agency, lists three main topics of climate adaptation: drought, heat waves and flooding. These problems correspond to three of our partner cities who are situated in regions which are particularly vulnerable to these problems (Venice: flooding; Zaragoza: drought; Lyon: heat waves). In the Netherlands a combination of all three problems occurs. In the Dutch conference we will start with the introduction of the background of climate change, before focusing on the adaptation to extreme rainfall. In this project students will learn how to adapt their environments and thus become active European citizens who can make their private and political choices in a well-thought-out manner. It is their future, but we must supply them with the proper knowledge and tools so they can make the right decisions.The first objective of our project is to increase students' awareness of climate adaptation, zooming in from European to national, regional and finally local scale. By learning from good practices regarding adaptation strategies in partner schools' regions, students will become acquainted with different points of view and learn from eachothers' experiences on adaptation. Building on this knowledge, students are on a path to become well-informed, active and involved citizens, which is the second goal of our project, and is related to the priority of civic engagement and participation. We want our students to be able to make choices based on facts, to express themselves, and to form a counterweight against gut-feelings and populism. Thirdly, our project involves the support of teacher competence development, linked to the strengthening of the profiles of the teaching professions. Teachers will work on a cross-curricular basis. Our fourth objective is to increase the digital competences of students and teachers as part of their 21st century skills. Students will obtain a certificate for acquired skills and competencies, which for example can be used in admittance to university. Furthermore, subject specific software is introduced to students as well as teachers, such as GIS (Geographical Information System). The final goal of our project is cultural enrichment via international exchange. Students will work in international subgroups and as such they will also experience cultural differences, as well as explore common values.For our project students aged 15-18 years are selected per country and we will take 6-8 students to each conference. They will be accompanied by two teachers. The students will stay in host families and parents will also participate in cultural and social events. In all four cities cooperation is sought with local governmental bodies, academic experts and other expert organizations, such as the KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute). In the four international conferences students will learn the ins and outs of the topic of climate adaptation from experts and field trips, after which they are required to process all relevant information in such a way that they can transfer this knowledge to the rest of the school and the rest of their social environments. The students are the key to dissemination of the project's results. The project intends to lead to several channels or mechanisms through which the students are able to spread their experiences, such as a website, a weblog, a film and lessons for undergraduate students. We want the students to actively change their environments for a longer period. With this in mind, all schools are to compose and inplement adaptation plans, for which permanent school climate councils are installed. Teachers will also increase their competences, improve their curricula and will work with new digital solutions. The time has come to take the major challenge of climate adaptation seriously. We sincerely hope that our project will contribute to that worldwide goal!